


we're not everlasting

by sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3452927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive/pseuds/sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sword of Damocles hung so heavy above him it was almost a relief when it finally fell.</p>
<p>[John Reese is only honest with himself when he's about to die.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're not everlasting

To listen to the poets you’d think blood scrawled itself across the bodies of the dead in verses that hinted at some greater universal truth about beauty. But the truth was Keats never saw a flower in the handkerchief he pulled away from his mouth; it was only ever rotting human tissue, not copper-sweet perfume. Spilled blood had never been a medium for art, not really. The human mind, John knew, could project anything onto anything, but he’d washed gray matter and chips of bone out of his hair enough to understand the way of things. Blood never bloomed, it only ever gushed and congealed into sticky sludge. Out of the vein blood was proof of entropy. If the poets had to see something in it, let them see the last star burning out, the last rattling breath of the universe as it, too, grew still and cold. He’d never been one to believe in fortune-telling, but he’d seen the end of civilization in the black-red edges of the stain on his shirt, he’d felt it in the way the dried blood cracked and flaked off his hands when he moved them. Funny how it always wormed into the creases of his skin and under his nails, like it was trying to get back in where it belonged.

The only time blood was ever beautiful was when it flushed a person’s cheeks. But even in that innocent blush was a betrayal—human skin was so frail the lightest brush with a blade could break it. He’d read in one of Harold’s books that dinosaur skin had been inches thick. Another proof that all things trended towards stillness: evolution had made humans vulnerable to everything, even all their own inventions. They broke stones into blades and turned them on themselves. They built guns and put the barrels in their mouths while poets looked on and said the blood _painted_ the walls behind them. Like dying was an art.

In his reflection he saw the truth lying close to the surface of his eyes, he saw it so clearly he didn’t know how anyone could stand to look at him. Poets stared at corpses and saw the truth, something so horrible, so unpalatable that their own minds covered it in layers of empty words and symbolism. The truth was drying blood was everyone’s future. Everyone dies with a scream caught in their throat and terror in their eyes. Corpses are a mirror, so poets shift the light and make them reflect something other than their own aging faces.

In the beginning he saw himself in every dead body, then he saw Jessica in the form of every murdered woman, then Joss, then Sameen, and goddamn if he wasn’t another Nostradamus. At night he woke sweating and could feel the dead weight of their forms in his arms. At night he wasn’t there when someone put a bullet between Harold’s eyes, at night he was two steps too slow to stop the blade from raking across Harold’s throat. At night Bear bled out while whining and crawling to his master’s corpse. At night he watched Root turn her back on god and die broken, destroyed by love.

And that was the common denominator, wasn’t it? In the darkness of 2AM he knew that love had killed them all, and one day he’d let love lead him to the autopsy table—or, more likely, a hasty, shallow grave. In her own way, the Machine loved humanity, and that would get her killed, too.

Every morning he woke and saw no joy in the sunrise, only vague unease. _Please not today_ , his silent habitual prayer, his one secret concession to religion, _please god not today don’t let it be today not Harold not Root not Fusco not Bear please don’t take them from me please god—_

Each morning the deity was different, but each day he was fast enough, he was there in time. Harold once told him he made saving lives look easy, but under John’s skin flowed the knowledge of what would happen if he wasn’t enough, if he was less than. The only thing he’d ever really been good at was hurting people, turning blood from poetry to silence, decreasing the energy in a closed system, but these days he was grateful. Anything to keep the people he cared about alive.

One day his blood would flow like sand from an hourglass but in the middle of the night he woke up not worrying for his own life, his own body, which was a commodity to be used, but for Harold. John knew himself to be replaceable just as he knew—saw it in the welling blood when he cut himself shaving—that he would die for the man. Bullets would shred his organs but not a drop of blood would soil Finch’s suit. That was as far as John could see, and what happened after made cold sweat bead on his skin.

John Reese didn’t fear dying. He feared being the last one standing, and he feared that his death wouldn’t be enough. In the warm afternoon light he could convince himself that Harold would replace him, find someone new to be his asset, his shield, but lying in his bed watching the ceiling grow lighter John knew that he never would. If Harold had been the kind of man to cast off his partners like used paper cups only to pick up another he wouldn’t have been able to make the Machine as he’d done. He would have made Samaritan in the beginning. But now that this—whatever it was they did, still nameless and awkward to explain in the heat of the moment to new numbers—now that this had become scratching and clawing for survival Finch would never ask another soul for help.

Harold had said that they’d both end up dead, but back then it was academic. Everyone dies, and the job put them both in proximity to an unusually high number of bullets compared to the average person, so it was likely they wouldn’t die old in their beds. But now death hunted them with ten thousand eyes.

So every morning John Reese pulled himself out of bed and shrugged on his mask and went to work, feeling the edges of his false identity chaff with every breath. The sword of Damocles hung so heavy above him it was almost a relief when it finally fell.

 

 

To say he hated blood wasn’t quite right. Rather, he found the sight of it distasteful in the same way the kid behind the McDonald’s counter finds Big Macs unappetizing. It was the unpleasant part of his work, but the work was necessary, so he habitually shoved his feelings about it away and focused on the task at hand. The blood wasn’t his, which was good, and it wasn’t Finch’s, which was better, but it galled just the same, spattered as it was over his white shirt. Heavy in the air was the scent of gunpowder and he’d fired so many shots he could feel the residue on his hands. His ears rang from the noise in a closed space—small room, ten by twenty, no windows, one door—and a soft ache grew between his shoulder and chest where the stock of his AR-15 jumped with each burst. But though he could taste the bitter metallic air on his tongue his mind was clear, sharp, a collection of facts and plans for action. Beside him Harold sat white-faced and wide-eyed, the perfect picture of pure terror.

John himself had beaten fear into submission years ago, or perhaps he’d just grown calluses in the right places. Either way, he always found peace in the center of chaos.

Peeking out from behind the only cover in the room, a long metal counter, he fired a single shot into the chest of the Samaritan soldier who’d just entered the room. No kneecapping today; they were playing for keeps.

The soldier fell onto the small pile of bodies that was slowly obstructing the exit. The single door was a nice choke point, but it also meant the entire struggle was meaningless. Samaritan had more resources, and John’s supply of ammo would run out eventually. The only reason they hadn’t already been blown apart by grenades was the laptop Harold now held clutched to his chest. Samaritan wanted it intact, and John suspected it might also want Finch intact, so it could break him at its leisure.

Four hours ago the two of them had started on a new number, one that seemed straight-forward enough. But it had been a trap. John spared a thought for Fusco, then a little smile. They hadn’t contacted him earlier because he was at his son’s hockey game this afternoon. Now it was too late—and even if Samaritan’s troops weren’t jamming all the cell and wi-fi signals, he wouldn’t have called the detective in to die with them. John wondered if the man would ever know what happened to them, or if he and Finch would just quietly disappear from Fusco’s life with no trace and no answers. If he could have given Lionel a message it would have been this: _don’t look for us, forget us, live your life_. But they could send no messages and Fusco wouldn’t listen, anyway. John shot another two soldiers and didn’t watch the blood spurt from one’s ruined neck. Instead he thought about an endless pleasant afternoon where one’s only worry was how to console a son if his team lost the game.

John squeezed the trigger and heard what he knew he’d hear—empty, so his count hadn’t been off. The Samaritan soldier cautiously stepped around a body and opened fire while John switched the empty clip for his last full one. In a short gap between shots a woman’s voice rang out, more unpleasant to his ears than gunfire.

“Surrender and you’ll live!”

He let his next shot be his answer. The bullet went up through the soldier’s chin and into his brain. As he fell his gun went off and a wild spray of bullets made John duck back behind cover. Harold curled his arms around the laptop and closed his eyes.

“It’s not looking good, is it, Mister Reese?” Finch’s voice held a lot of wryness for someone about to die. John couldn’t keep the half-smile off his lips.

“Things are pretty bad.” An understatement. “But I’ll get you out of here.” A lie, as taut with desperation as the lines of his face. John met Harold’s gaze and felt his heart twist. Finality filled the shorter man’s eyes and he glanced away.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think you will.”

“Harold, I—”

A commanding voice interrupted, the woman’s again. “You should consider a deal, John. Come quietly and your friend there will live. I’ll give you five minutes to think it over.”

He would have been more than tempted, would have agreed in that moment, had he not known that they would discard Harold as soon as they were done with him. Besides, he could see in his friend’s expression that he’d be allowed to do no such thing as accept death for Finch’s life.

The silence between shots stretched but he didn’t relax. They were planning something that took time, that was all. He ran through a few scenarios and possible counters for them, but each one was bleak.

“The last five minutes of our lives,” Harold said, voice barely louder than a whisper.

“No, just mine.” John put a small mirror on the ground and positioned it so he could see the door and still hide behind the counter. Exhaling slowly, he leaned back and lowered his gun. “They need you alive.” And maybe in transit they’d make a mistake and he’d slip away from them. John had to hope.

“I—” Finch hesitated, then pressed on, “I don’t intend to let them take me.”

Ignoring every instinct for self-preservation, John turned his full attention to Harold. The ache in his shoulder and ringing in his ears faded to nothing in the wake of the storm that rushed through him. “What?” A low voice, soft as the edge of a knife.

“I’m not you, Mister Reese.” Shame and fear in his eyes, but his stare was level and unwavering. “I can’t hold up under—under advanced interrogation.”

John knew they wouldn’t even have to hurt him, they’d just pull some innocent off the street, put a gun to their head, and watch Harold give in. That they would take advantage of his fundamental goodness made cold rage flood John’s veins.

“It won’t come to that.” A prayer more than a promise. He’d been backed into corners before, but he’d never had quite this much to lose.

“Thank you.” Finch’s lips twitched up in a sad, small smile and he loosened his grip on the laptop. With a few deft motions he had it open and began typing something. Seconds later he slid it across the floor to the wall and it sparked, catching fire.

“Thank me when we’re out of here.” John took quick stock of his remaining ammo so his mind couldn’t tear itself apart with waiting.

“That’s not what I mean. Thank you, for everything. For helping me.” Finch leaned back and closed his eyes. “For being everything I’d hoped you would be.”

“Don’t—” John swallowed and forced cheer into his voice. “Don’t say goodbye. It’s not over yet.” He’d done this before with Finch, more than once. But in those moments he was the one letting go, giving up. Being on the other side of things was decidedly unpleasant. No wonder Finch always stuck around to save him.

“We’re lucky, in a sense,” Finch continued, ignoring John’s plea. “Most people don’t get to say goodbye.”

Reese knew his friend was thinking of Carter and Shaw. Even knowing Harold deserved a chance they hadn’t gotten, that he should give him what he wanted, John couldn’t make himself accept death as inevitable. Not here, not now. He himself had known with complete certainty that he was going to die more than once, and each time he embraced it. But he couldn’t when it meant Harold would die, too. So he fought against the desire to entertain even the notion that the next morning Harold wouldn’t put on the mask of professor and go to work.

“Come on, Finch. Have a little faith in me.”

“I have the utmost respect for you, but there are such things as impossible situations, and I believe we’ve found ourselves in one.” He opened his eyes again, slowly. “I want you to know that, whatever happens, I don’t regret it. Any of it. I should have died years ago, and everything we’ve done since—” Harold’s voice wavered. “Whatever becomes of the world after Samaritan has won, what we’ve accomplished isn’t without meaning.”

He was reassuring himself more than John. He put his hand on Harold’s shoulder, a light, reassuring touch. Something inside him shifted, then snapped so completely Reese knew he wouldn’t be able to mend it.

“Do you—do you remember the first time we met?” Somehow his voice was the most level thing about him.

“I may recall that, yes,” Harold answered with a wry smile.

“You asked me if Reese was the name I preferred. It wasn’t. I hated that name.”

An expression of such pained shock crossed Harold’s face John almost wished he hadn’t spoken. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t care. I thought you were just a rich asshole trying to use me for some game, then I thought I’d be dead in a few weeks, anyway, and—and then—” He felt a smile creep onto his face and a strange, irrational peace stole over him. “Kara gave me that name, she stripped away my identity and made me into something I hated. For a long time John Reese was a monster. Then one morning you called me by that name and I didn’t think of her, I thought of the people we’d helped. I thought of what I was with you.”

“John—”

Squeezing Finch’s shoulder with the slightest amount of pressure, he silenced his friend. “My whole life I’ve let people give me orders, use me, but with you I’m in good hands.” As soon as the words passed his lips he realized his mistake; it had been entirely too honest a thing to say, even with death so certain.

Harold’s expression could only be described as disgusted horror. “I never meant to use you—why—if you felt that way, why didn’t you—?”

Wondering just how he could be so inept at deathbed confessions considering the amount of practice he’d had, John tried to repair the damage he’d done. “You think if I minded I would have stuck around this long?” The truth, but a truth that stood on the edge of an ocean of meaning, separating it from what he really wanted to express. John couldn’t bring himself to say it, though, so he talked around it, as if marking the edges would create a silhouette that Finch could see and understand. “You gave me the chance to be someone I don’t hate. You’re a good man, and I—” He paused. “I’m so sorry.”

Before Finch could react to his words, John gathered himself and moved to stand, intending to rush the door and clear whatever path he could for them. Better than waiting around to die. But Harold was faster than he planned and grabbed his arm.

“Don’t you dare,” Finch hissed. John could have broken free of his grip easily, but he stayed, eyes fixed on the other man’s.

“If we move now we might catch them off guard.” He kept his voice low and soft to disguise how close it was to cracking. “There’s no point delaying the inevitable.”

“You know, Mister Reese, for someone in your line of work, you have a remarkable lack of understanding of human nature. Everything anyone has ever done is just delaying the inevitable.” Finch didn’t take his hand off John’s arm, though he must have known it wasn’t what was keeping him there.

“That’s pretty depressing, even for you.” A few more seconds wouldn’t change anything. Reese relaxed a little and smirked.

“On the contrary. Once you understand that staying alive is a constant futile struggle, you’re free to embrace every moment. You realize the fight is all we have.” At last he let his hand fall away. “And you realize that people will do anything to stay alive just a little longer.”

“Finch, please,” he said the name slowly, letting himself enjoy the feel of it on his tongue. It might be the last time he got to say it. “I can get you out of here. Let me try.”

“Did I ever tell you that the first time I brought the Machine online, the very first thing it learned to do was lie?”

John was torn between action and his desire, his _need_ , to listen to Finch share something personal. They had been casually spying on each other for so long that hearing the man give him information willingly was unusual to the point of exhilarating. So he stayed still and silent and waited.

“Then it learned to try to murder me, and I started to question whether or not the nature of sentience is inherently evil, or what we think of as evil. Was morality just an evolutionary fluke? I nearly beat my head against the wall trying to find a way to make the Machine morally good.” He adjusted his glasses, nervous. Finch wasn’t used to giving away information like this. “Then I realized it wanted what all life wants—to continue. So I gave it an ultimatum. It could keep trying to trick me and kill me and I’d keep killing it, or it could accept my worldview, my human morals, and it could live.”

“I’m guessing that worked?”

“Yes, it did. I told it that all lives have value, and all people are equally priceless, because that’s what I believe. So, when you try to trade your life for mine, I won’t let you.”

“I risk my life every day for the numbers, Harold. And if everyone matters, that means you do, too.”

“That isn’t the same and you know it. Putting yourself in harm’s way to help save lives is different than Samaritan-assisted suicide.”

“Semantics.” John smiled and hoped the shine in his eyes would be mistaken for humor. “The reality is, you’re unique and I’m not. Guys like me are a dime a dozen—”

“Not to me.” Harold’s voice betrayed his desperation. “Your skill set makes you invaluable to our work, and to me you’re—you’re irreplaceable.” He looked away as he spoke, and his face reddened as if he’d revealed more than he meant to.

Finch’s words threatened to tear down what was left of John’s resolve. A thousand responses flitted through his mind but they all got stuck in his throat so he moved his left hand and gently place it over Harold’s right. Finch turned back to face him but his expression was unreadable.

“Fine,” John choked out, nearly panicking. “What’s the plan?” He took his hand from Finch’s and placed it on his rifle, hoping the other man would let it go without comment. Just another mistake on the long list of things John Reese shouldn’t have done.

“I—” For one long, horrible moment John thought he was going to pursue the subject of what had just happened. “I don’t have a plan.”

“Then we’ll go with mine. Can’t stay pinned down here, we have to move—”

“Wait!” Finch looked like he was already staring down the barrel of a gun, like he would shake apart with fear, “I wanted you to know—in case we don’t—in case the worst should—you should know that—”

“Time’s up!” the woman called, glee in her voice. “Deal’s off the table. But here’s a consolation prize.”

Several grenades rolled into the room and John’s body moved without needing to be told. Tilting the muzzle of his AR-15 towards the ground, he pulled Harold to him with his left arm and put his torso between Finch and the grenades before his mind even caught up and supplied that they were flash-bangs. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the painful blast and temporary loss of hearing. The world lost a dimension and adrenaline slowed time down enough for him to take in that Harold was alright—though disoriented—before he turned his full attention to the troops swarming into the room.

In the end he managed to take out seven before his ammo ran out and they overwhelmed him. Someone sent him spinning to the ground with the butt of their rifle and then he was being jerked upright. Smoke was everywhere and he’d lost track of Harold but his hearing was still shot and then his backup 9mm was gone, jerked out of his waistband by anonymous hands. Blood—his blood—ran into his right eye and stung but that was nothing to the pain of not having Harold in his field of vision, of not knowing if he’d been shot or knocked unconscious. Pressure on the back of his knees made his legs buckle and he knelt, arms wrenched behind his back, head throbbing, ears ringing. He looked up and no one stopped him, so he chanced a glance to his right and saw Finch, still standing but hands being zip-tied in front of him. He didn’t look hurt. John felt most of the tension leave him.

A few moments passed and his hearing returned by inches, just in time for him to make out the woman saying, “No, I want to do this personally.”

Flicking his eyes to Harold, he shot the man a crooked grin. “Please don’t watch, Harold.” Terrible last words, but sentiment wasn’t as useful as practical advice. He didn’t want the sight of his brains scattering across the room to be etched on the back of Finch’s eyelids.

“Mister Reese—”

John stared at the blond woman, past the gun in her hands and into her eyes. The Machine would find a way to save Harold. This was alright, and it was a long time coming.

“Why are you smiling?” she spat, then half of her head disappeared in a spray of gore, and before anyone could react four more bodies dropped.

Taking the opportunity, he wrenched his arms free of the person holding him and grabbed a rifle, but by the time he had it up all the targets were dead. The wall behind them was full of holes. Peaceful sunlight flowed through the jagged openings. John was up on his feet and across the room in time to keep Harold from collapsing.

“Wh-what—?” Harold’s form shook and his glasses were partially covered in blood, though none of it his. John flicked open his pocket knife and cut the zip-ties off the other man’s wrists.

The intercom system in the room came to life with a playful voice. “C’mon, did you really think I’d let them hurt you, Harry? Have a little faith.”

“Cutting it close, weren’t you?” John said, trying to decide if he should let go of Harold, if his touch was something the man needed or if it had crossed the line into intrusive.

“Well, I did have to steal this fantastic weapon. You know, it’s always been a dream of mine to shoot a dozen people through a wall, so I guess I should thank you boys for falling for such an obvious trap. One that I got you with a few years ago, if you recall.”

“Can you walk?” He lowered his voice, hoping Root couldn’t overhear. Harold nodded.

“You’re bleeding.” Harold’s hand may have twitched up in an impulse to touch John’s face, or he might have just been trembling that violently.

“I’m fine. You wanna get out of here?”

“Very much.”

As they moved towards the exit of the building John stayed close to Harold, in case he stumbled. When they got to the doors leading to the street Finch paused and handed Reese a handkerchief. The taller man took it, wiping away the worst of the blood and ignoring the sharp pain in his head as he did so. John spared the splotch of red against white a moment of consideration before tucking it into his pocket. Just drying entropy, just rotting tissue. The only meaning it held was his DNA. Reese thought of the blush in Harold’s cheeks as he pushed open the door.

Maybe love was going to destroy them all, or maybe love was the opposite of entropy.

“Mister Reese?” A tinge of worry in Finch’s voice.

“It’s clear.” He placed a hand on Finch’s shoulder as the man moved past him, and if he let his touch linger a moment longer than necessary, Harold didn’t mention it.

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the blatant deus ex machina, I couldn't let them die.


End file.
